↘raw_thought wrote:Yes, the brain has its own language, instead of letters and words its neurons firing. However, that does not bridge the explanatory gap. The fact remains that there is a triangular form ( otherwise we could not visualize triangles) that has no physical form. The neurons do not fire in a triangular shape etc. My response to Hobbes Choice , above your post explains further.
Yes, like everyone else, I have no good answer for the explanatory gap.Basically what I said was EVEN IF the information is embedded that has no impact on the argument. * Saying that our visualized triangle is identical to neurons firing ( but not in a triangular form ) is like saying that holding a CD of Mozart ( yes Mozart's music is embedded in the CD) is the same as hearing Mozart's music.
In other words there is the form of the visualized triangle ( if there wasn't then visualizing triangles would be impossible) but it has no physical form. There is nothing physical in the brain that is triangular and corresponds to the visualized triangle.
* if the triangle is embedded in a non-triangular form has nothing to do with what we are talking about.
A couple of side notes, though:
1. As with the brain, there is nothing physically triangular in machine language that describes a triangle if it's not rendered on a screen either - at least not ostensibly so.
2. Re: Leibniz's statement in your OP: "Nothing but parts which push and move each other , and never anything that could explain perception". Given his belief systems, I take him as suggesting that, if we do exist within a larger conscious system, all we'd ever see are balls in the sky moving around. So consciousness can't be found by examination of entities in themselves, but perhaps in the dynamic relationships within and between entities.
I am comfortable with Chalmers's dualism for now. Maybe a sense of being is intrinsic to the universe? Maybe that sense of being filters through material entities more or less depending on their organisation? I do think we greatly underestimate the complexity of that which we consider to be minimally conscious or unconscious, eg. deep sleep, which involves largely truncated external sensing but a multitude of internal senses and responses. I don't think that consciousness is entirely gone during deep sleep, it's just that we don't notice it, just as we can't visually notice the bacteria on and around us. In each case, only sensitive equipment can reveal "insignificant" phenomena.
Agreed. DD strikes me as playing an atheist "good cop" role in the current culture wars, hoping to "attract more flies with honey than with vinegar". An enormous amount of reality is ineffable, at least currently so. Even energy cannot be satisfactorily defined beyond its functionality.raw_thought wrote:My seminar paper at university ( concerning "Quining Qualia" ) was well received. I showed that Dennett's argument is circular. 1. Qualia is partly defined as ineffable. 2. Dennett shows that qualia are ineffable. 3. Nothing ineffable can exist. 4. therefore qualia cannot exist...In other words, the ineffable is impossible because the ineffable is impossible.
In the above quote, Dennett is basically saying that pain does not hurt etc.